In Confidence
by Churro-Dragon
Summary: Firo walks Ennis home and confronts something he doesn't want to talk about. Set between the events of The Rolling Bootlegs and the Grand Punk Railroad.


"–So I'm saying this loser here thinks he can hold us off with like, what? Two of what he considers his biggest thugs, who just come marching in like they already own the place. Who does this fella even think he is, it's not like we haven't been holding up our side of the agreement for years and now he scrapes up some shitty excuse to wreck havoc on our territory. 'Course we couldn't just kick them out without pushing them around a bit before."

Firo was talking very quickly and excitedly, only taking brief pauses in the middle of his tale to munch on his food. They were sitting in a tiny, ancient Italian restaurant crammed at the side of an alley, which Firo had explained as "It doesn't look like much, but it's great if you're tired of all the honey-flavored stuff and just want a quick bite to eat." Ennis poked at her food absentmindedly. She admired Firo's enthusiasm, but as she couldn't seem to muster it up herself she tried her best to listen politely while he told his story.

Even then she couldn't seem to focus. Her thoughts continued to travel through the detailed city map in her head, idling their way through the smelly alleyways and busy streets, back to the little bookstore on the corner that she had visited the other day. She had passed it by countless times, but had never entered–she had always been too busy going around running errands for her master–but now she had been inside and seen it on her own. It wasn't a large place at all; one could probably have found a much more impressive collection at any of the public libraries around the city, but to her it was a slow revelation into a whole new way of living, one she had yet to grow accustomed to.

"Hey, Ennis," Firo's voice snapped her out of her little reverie. "You still down here on earth?"

"I'm sorry," she said for what seemed like the hundredth time. "I'm just feeling very distracted today."

"You doing okay?" he asked, looking suddenly concerned. "Come to think of it, I've hardly seen you for the past coupla months. Where've you been all this time?"

She gesture was foreign her, being used to giving straightforward answers, but it felt like the right thing to do at this moment. Firo's questions seemed hopelessly vague, and his intention baffled her. Where had she been? She hadn't tried to actively hide her location from anyone. She'd visited in several places over the past few months. The Alveare restaurant, to talk with Lia Langshan. Grand Central Station, to sit idly at the side and stare at the multitudes of people shuffling in and out, wondering where they were going in such a hurried manner, and why it was so important to them. And of course, the bookstore. And if Firo really did want to know about her, he could simply reach into her mind, the way _he_ had done, and retrieve what he wanted. He had made it clear early on however that such an option was repulsive to him, and for that her mind, like her feet, now could roam and wander down the streets and passageways of new ideas and concepts without an overbearing sense of doom clouding over them.

"I've been walking around." she shrugged again.

"Can't say this part of town is the prettiest tourist's paradise, but it does fine on its own." He drained his glass. "Except for some of those wandering delinquents who like to cause trouble on the streets. I mean, not that I have to worry about you being in any particular danger, or anything. I hafta say you might look kinda timid at first but I've seen you, you can throw some impressively nasty punches, as well as some crazy moves I've never even seen before."

"…Timid?"

"N-not that that's a bad thing or anything!" he said quickly, waving his his hands in front of him defensively. "I'm just saying it's a bit of a first impression, you know? But it's useful, it means you can be sneaky and land a blow right on the mark before they even know you're there. I'm pretty quick if I say so myself, but I've never really been good at the stealth thing. But hey! With all this new immortality stuff maybe I probably should stop worrying so much about fatal injuries, heheh." he chuckled to himself for a while, in amusement at his own joke, but eventually the laughs faded and he turned abnormally solemn. "I gotta say though," he said, "it did hurt a lot to be pumped full of lead like that. Maybe it was the surprise but–-it was pretty bad. I was dead back there, for about a minute. That's the funny thing, I guess, I've managed to not die for most of my life, ever since I was a kid pickpocketing the older cammoristas on the street. I thought I'd gotten good at it too, especially right after my promotion, what with beating Maiza of all people in the duel! Pretty damn invincible, that's how I felt. Now I know that it only takes being in front of some idiots with machine guns to send you straight to the undertaker. It makes me kinda mad, you know, that fate can just take you out like that, but then again maybe I shouldn't be so mad. It was pretty much fate that's why I'm still alive right now, and will continue to be, forever and ever." He stood up and slammed his palms down on the table, as if in realization. "I'm gonna have the best life! Now that getting shot won't stop me, that just means I can get tougher and better at everything I do. I'll never have to worry about getting old and weak, or getting sick, ever again!" His eyes sparkled with a mischievous fervor, but Ennis noted that the way he unconsciously tapped his fingers on the side of the table betrayed some sort of suppressed anxiety.

"Are you sure you are alright?" she ventured to ask.

"Whaddya mean, 'alright?' Didn't you listen to anything I just said?"

"Szilard, I mean. It's been a while since you've devoured him, but it doesn't bother you at all?"

Firo didn't speak, just sat down quickly and was suddenly preoccupied with stabbing violently at his pasta. Ennis wondered again if she'd made another mistake, said something out of turn, something inappropriate for the situation. She contemplated apologizing again, but she'd already done enough of that today.

"Goddammit," he finally muttered, shifting in his seat. "I'm completely fine! I just told you. Why bring up the bygones when you can enjoy a wonderful cheap meal, you know? You don't get this kinda stuff anywhere else in the world. Except maybe in Italy." He paused to chew thoughtfully. "'Course I've never been to Italy, so I can't say for sure. I knew Maiza said he was born there, but of course that was more than two hundred years ago, so who knows?"

Ennis decided not to ask him any more questions, and they finished their meal quickly. She tried to pay but Firo stopped her. "Don't you worry about the bill. It's your first time and my treat."

"Thank you," she said, remembering her manners.

"Mind if I walk you home?"

Ennis hesitated. Her home, if she could call it that, had always been meant to be hidden, but now that there was no need to hide anything anymore, she decided that it wouldn't hurt to show it to someone else. Besides, she enjoyed Firo's company.

"No. I don't mind at all." she smiled slightly at him–that was the polite thing to do, in such a case, right?

Along the sidewalk, he continued spouting out words idly, casually trying to fill the absences caused by her own lack of conversation. He chatted on about the goings-on of the Martillos, their run-ins with the Russos and Runoratas, how his casino was holding up. He smiled often and laughed heartily, but she sensed uneasiness behind his bravado.

The entrance to her abode sat in a shadowy corner of town that looked as if it had ducked for cover between two newer, much more imposing and noticeable buildings. She wrenched aside a weak, dented piece of wood which barely passed for a door, and led the way down a narrow, dusty flight of stairs.

A white mouse darted across the floor, startling them before abruptly disappearing back into the shadows.

"Jeez," said Firo. "What kind of hole was that old man keeping you in?"

"He was always very concerned about securing his discoveries," she explained, unlocking the door at the bottom of the staircase. "Especially when it came to his line of work."

"You mean all that alchemy mumbo-jumbo? That stuff's so complicated, it's already in my brain and I'm still not sure what to make of it all."

There he goes again, thought Ennis. He talked big about how he was too dumb to understand the complexity of Szilard's information, but she, like everyone else, knew it was a farce. Firo might be simple-minded, prone less to introspection and more on focusing bullheadedly on one thing at a time, but he was as sharp as the edges of the knives he carried on him at all times. He had, after all, managed to comprehend knowledge he had absorbed well enough to bring her back to life only moments after he'd absorbed the old man.

She jiggled the key in the lock one last time and nudged the door open, leading him past a small but clean kitchen to her room, which consisted of a plain but neat bed and a wardrobe containing a few clean white shirts, a couple plain black pantsuits, and a variety of pocket-sized weapons.

"This is it?" Firo asked in amazement.

"It was enough for most of my life here," she said. "I didn't need anything else, really. I did what I needed to do, then I would disappear." Should she feel sad? Embarrassed of her place? She wasn't sure how to feel about it.

"You mean there isn't anything else for you down here?"

"Well, there was always his quarters–I was never allowed there–but now, I guess, that isn't a problem anymore…" Overwhelmed with a new feeling–curiosity–she ran over to the end of the hall, where another formidable door stood. She reached out towards it, expecting it to be locked, but the knob turned surprisingly smoothly. Apparently Szilard had counted on the total obedience of his homunculus to serve as the lock to his door.

The room on the other side was nothing like the exterior of the place. It was the size of an ordinary basement, but furnished with all sorts of jars, implements, notebooks, fluids, shelves filling up every spare space. Everything appeared messy and strewn about, but upon closer inspection revealed a minute sense of genius organization–every sheet of paper, every pen, every strange bottled concoction had its place.

And everything was covered with a thick layer of dust.

"Szilard's personal laboratory," she said. "He had a bigger, fancier one in another part of the city, but this was where he worked on minor projects. I assisted him with his larger studies, but I've never seen this one. I suppose this was for him alone."

She turned to Firo and found that he had gone pale.

"Firo?" He didn't seem to hear her voice. His face was expressionless, but his fists were clenched tightly at his side.

"Firo." At a loss as for what was the socially correct thing to do in this situation, she reached for his hand, and he relaxed somewhat at her touch.

"I'm alright," he said again, breathing normally. "It's just–I recognize this place, in my mind–from _his_ mind, I should say."

He reached out and picked up what seemed like a random sheet of paper lying on the desk. "These were the last notes he took before he croaked," he said, brushing off the dust and squinting at the jagged handwriting. "I can't read it. It's written all in some weird alchemist code–also in some other language–Hungarian, I think. Pretty useless now." he crumpled the sheet and tossed it across the room. "It's just a bunch of old-timer junk. I say we lock up the place and just leave it to rot." he strode across the room, back to the door, then stopped. " 'fcourse," he said, "I can't very well leave you to live here all alone here in this creepy dust pit."

"I'll be fine," said Ennis. "It's my home, after all." She sized up her small collection of worldly possessions. "Although… I suppose it wouldn't be too hard to move out. Maybe somewhere with more light. That would be nice."

"Oh! Well in that case–" he started to talk in his usual excited manner, but then caught himself and stopped.

"What's that?"

"It's–uh–it's nothing really," he sputtered. "I mean–I just had an idea–ahhh, it's probably stupid, don't listen to me."

"You can just say it, you know. I don't understand why you always berate yourself. It's not like I'd think less of you."

"That's an awful generous thing of you to say." He laughed nervously. "Well, alright, it's bad manners to keep a girl hanging. I was just wondering if–well–if you wanted to move out, I wouldn't mind–we could live–I mean, you could stay at my apartment."

He took a deep breath, seemingly exhausted from finally blurting out the choppy sentence.

"Only if you want to, of course," he said quickly, waving his hands in front of him. "I don't want you to feel obligated or anything. Maybe you just like being on your own, I get that. I just thought it might be an option, if you're up for it. To be fair my place isn't much bigger than this pit here, but it's got windows and a view of the street, and that's gotta count for something in this city! Also I can definitely fit another cot in the other room too, for privacy and stuff. Like I said, it's just a crazy idea of mine that I just thought of right now."

Ennis didn't reply immediately, still trying to comprehend his suggestion. Move _in_ with Firo? She hadn't shared her life with anyone else except for Szilard for years.

"That's very kind of you," she said finally. "I…I'll definitely consider it. I think though, I just need some time. To fix up this mess and just get used to being on my own for a while."

Firo seemed to relax from his previous nervous tension. "I can understand that," he said. "But if you ever decide you wanna take up the offer, then it'll still be here."

"Thank you." She smiled back at him. "It's been a month of… interesting changes. For both of us," she said. "There's still so much I need to get used to."

"Same here," said Firo. "But I guess we can try to figure things out together then? I'm sure it'll be easier that way. So uh, I guess I'll see you tomorrow as usual?"

"Yes. I'd like that. Although if you don't mind, I think I'll just stay outside. Take a walk… or something."

They reentered the sunlight, or what little of it was left, as a few clouds began to congregate in the sky, with the promise of more to come.

"Looks like it's gonna rain. I'd better get back to my post," said Firo.

"And you, are you sure–" Ennis stopped herself, but the end of the sentence was evident enough. _Are you sure you'll be alright?_ Unlike how she'd asked him earlier, however, he didn't get angry. Instead he just laughed to himself slightly and shrugged.

"Didn't I tell you at lunch?" he said with a smug smile. "I'll be just fine."


End file.
